


Drown And Dream Each Moment

by Rigel99



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, M/M, Resurrection, Self-Discovery, The Other World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-16 20:04:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9287705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rigel99/pseuds/Rigel99
Summary: QUADRANT ˈkwɒdr(ə)nt/Noun technical1.	each of four quarters of a circle.2.	historically  an instrument used for taking angular measurements of altitude in astronomy and navigation, typically consisting of a graduated quarter circle and a sighting mechanism.3.	The fourth, defining, final piece and physical embodiment of the three most influential people in Bond’s life.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blue_hydrangea7539](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_hydrangea7539/gifts), [Chestnut_NOLA](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chestnut_NOLA/gifts).



> A real departure from my usual style, I gave Natalie's lovely art piece complete licence over the story and let the imagery dictate the words. Very much out of my comfort zone, but really enjoyed the experience.
> 
> The artwork that inspires the words is by blue_hydrangea7539 and is titled YOU CALLED?
> 
> Also dedicated to Chestnut_NOLA for being so "moderately" fabulous. :)

So. This is the end. 

It was always destined to be this way. The fate of a man who has walked in the Valley of the Shadow of Death since the day he lost both his parents could not be expected to find a peaceful passing. Maybe the afterlife would be interesting. Maybe he’d be flailed, branded and scourged eternally by the men and women who had died at his hand - directly or otherwise. He doubted if he would be granted any special concessions. Or maybe there would simply be blissful emptiness, floating forever in silence…

Bond barely felt the sting of the water’s impact as he hit the brutal surface of the river, moments after his fellow agent’s bullet tore through his chest. The blood from the wound mingled and swirled with the water’s eddies, their gentle but firm insistence pushing him towards the waterfall. He didn’t fight or resist. The fight was all but gone from Commander James Bond, soon to be nothing more than a name on the wall in the foyer of River House and an obituary written by the woman whose very last words had been very final indeed.

 _“Take the bloody shot!”_ she’d all but shouted in his ear. Never one to let sentimentality stand in the way of destroying a life. Bitch.

And bloody it was, as the life ebbed from Bond, body tumbling and falling, falling, falling until…

…He wasn’t falling anymore.

And a voice, seemingly that had taken up residence in his head, like a gentle stream its lyrical tones penetrated his mind, pulling him back from the abyss.

“Oh what a bad, _bad_ boy you’ve been, Commander Bond…”

Bond opened his eyes. Or at least, it _felt_ like he opened his eyes. Before him, hovered a pale, slim body, almost ethereal, the manner in which it seemed to glow from within. There was certainly no other source of light in the vicinity seen to be reflecting off his skin. The expanse of his wings meant they beat slowly and with purpose, though Bond did not feel any air shift around them. But he could not see the entity’s eyes. He vaguely wondered if he even had any. His hair was so dark it looked like a hole through to another dimension, sucking Bond towards him.

“You say bad as though it’s a bad thing,” Bond said.

“Certainly more an interesting bad than a _bad_ bad,” replied the entity.

Bond didn’t dwell on those words. “And who might you be? My Angel of Death come to cast my soul into endless night?”

The entity’s smile was wide and knowing, a smile that probably should have worried Bond but he’d seen so much in this life, he didn’t think the next one would hold any surprises. “My plans for you are not so poetic, Commander. Consider me more a guiding angel.”

His whispering echo floated through his mind. “ _Only human. Can’t be right all the time_.”

“I am Quadrant. You may call me Q.”

“Quadrant? A tool then.”

Q’s dark lips quirked in amusement but remained still when he “spoke.” “Perceptive one, aren’t you?”

Bond smiled in return, looking around at the seemingly vast emptiness surrounding them but somehow, emitting the sense that it was teeming with life. “Of all I expected, I never actually expected there to be an afterlife. The Universe is full of surprises.”

His gaze, a brighter blue in this dimension than in his former one, can to rest on Q once more.“Do your worst then. Q.”

“Hold on, Commander,” Quadrant’s hollow voice, cascading like water down his spine. “We’re taking a little trip around time.”

Bond sighed. “Must we? I find I’m rather tired and was looking forward to some rest.”

Q glided forward, all but eliminating the space between them. “I’m afraid I must insist. All who have endured life’s path must revisit some of the more shall we say, influencing aspects before they can be expected to make a choice.”

“I have a choice?”

Q smiled that knowing smile once more. “We all have a choice, Commander.”

* * *

“Your life has been rather more productive than you think, Commander Bond.”

“I’m sure you mean destructive, Q,” Bond replied wryly. “I’ve rid the world of many things, some less important than others.”

The Quadrant opted for silence then, knowing as he had come to understand through so many of these encounters and lessons that the only manner in which to convey the true impact of a person’s life in the world they had left behind was to show them. The last vestiges of their corporeal form clung to their physical existence like water to a sponge and sight was a sense that they had the most difficulty giving up.

They floated for a time that seemed endless to Bond. Images flitted through his mind but none of them took hold until…

“Wait,” he whispered quietly. He reached a tentative hand forward to touch the vision before him, felt the hand beneath his merge into his own and the melodic trill of a French female accent say, “Don’t worry, James. Your father and I will be home before you know it. As if we’d miss Christmas with our little prince.”

“Promise?” James heard himself ask in the voice of a child, feeling her soft cheek lean into the palm of his hand.

“Be good for Kincade or we won’t bring you back anything nice!” she called over her shoulder while sailing out the front door towards a waiting car.

Her smile lingered for a moment longer before melting back into the shadows of those thoughts he kept tucked away for his darkest times. Something to remind him that there was a still a part of him that was human. For what it was worth.

James didn’t look at his other-world companion when he spoke. “She never promised. To come back,” he stated flatly, a tone of acceptance that had never really understood why such cruelties were laid at the door of children.

“And you’re cut from the same cloth, James. You never make promises you know you can’t keep either, do you?”

“It’s a wise policy,” replied James. “The only sound one.”

“Yes, it is,” replied Quadrant, moving forward to envelope the agent’s form in the shimmering shadow of his wings. James closed his eyes and continued to fall.

Quadrant’s silky voice teased the neurons in his mind. “It may be of small comfort to you after all this time, but you should know. Her passing, and that of your father was quick and relatively painless.” Before James could ask the question Q knew was on his lips, he shifted time around them. Because it was only naturally that one would ask if they could see their loved ones one final time. Such a gift however, was not within Q’s power. “Hold your breath, James.”

* * *

Time was as irrelevant as the corporeal form that Bond no longer occupied in this dimension. “Where are we?” he asked. 

“The future,” replied The Quadrant, “or at least one possible variation of that which must come to pass.”

Bond closed his eyes, the smell of damp heather flooding his mind with painful memories. “It feels more like the past,” he said quietly.

“Time is wily like that,” said the Quadrant, “especially in this realm, between worlds.” He shrugged his shoulders, ruffling the wings relaxing at his back. The emptiness around them dissolved and laid bare the familiar setting.

“Skyfall…” murmured Bond, staring at the large mansion burning bright in the darkness. He watched as two figures, obviously running from the mayhem, stumbled towards him and then passed right through him.

“Kincade. M…?” he said, turning to follow in their wake. He felt the invisible thread tug him back. “Before we go,” Q said, “know that everything I show you has a purpose.” A sliver of dread nestled quietly in the corner of Bond’s thoughts but he nodded to Q and followed the gamekeeper and the woman who had anchored him to the world - for better or worse.

Darkness consumed the bitter and fog-strewn Scottish moors; the fog holding equal status of enemy or ally, depending on how well one knew the terrain, rolled against the outside wall of the tiny chapel, clawing, smoky fingers desperate for sanctuary from the loneliness of the desolate landscape. The fires from the remains of the Bond ancestral home burned the skyline.

And Bond and the Quadrant watched from the shadows, while somewhere in a future not yet divined, Olivia Mansfield, ten year long Commander-in-Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, died in his arms.

She had lived making her last stand with her most trusted Double O by her side, stalwart in the eye of the tornado of violence that had whipped up around them all in recent days; Died, flanked by men of violence themselves, the children she had moulded in an image she believed could save the world from itself and the shadowy forces that threatened the ignorant and unwitting that they sought to protect from forces unseen every day.

“Someone usually dies,” Bond’s words said for the first and the second time that day. “Why does it have to be her?” he asked, the detached tone in stark contrast to the man kneeling by her side, fighting back the tears.

She bestowed a small parting smile as she looked into bright, blue eyes, glistening in the soft light of the little church, her look that of one who knows and understands the sacrifices that have to be made in life and in death.

“At least I got one thing right,” she whispered, her voice fading into the gaping chasm waiting to swallow her up from this world.

“It was her time,” Q replied. 

“So if I lived now, she dies here.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

“Hardly a choice is it.”

Q moved abruptly in front of him and fully expanded his wings. When they dropped down again, the scene had changed.

A young Olivia Mansfield, sitting on the edge of a hospital bed. Eyes wet with tears. The small boy in her arms, lips resting softly against her cheek before they went slack and the life ebbed from his fragile body. “Don’t go,” she whispered pleadingly into his hair. “My darling boy, please don’t leave me…”

Bond barely had time to process the vision before it changed again. A slightly older boy, or younger version of himself, sat arms folded across his chest and mouth set in a hard line of the uncooperative, sullen prepubescent orphan. Bond’s mind clenched hard at the memory.

The woman opposite, she who would define his future. And never give up on him. “Stubborn little shit, aren’t you?” Olivia said, resting her chin in interlaced fingers, smiling crookedly. Bond’s chest tightened. It was in that second he may have fallen a little bit in love. Not that he’d ever admit that to anyone. They’d fought. Constantly. She the British Bulldog to his incessant and troublesome terrier. And Bond had loved her all the more for that.

She never gave up on him.

Q watched the expressions ghost across his features. “You gave each other purpose, Commander. Right until the end.”

“And what am I without her?”

“All that she gave you,” Q said. “Broken but not irreparable. Strong, resilient. Never beyond repair.”

“Except I’m dead.”

“Mmm. Maybe. Maybe not.” Q said, unfurling and wrapping his wings around Bond, the scene around them melting into darkness. “There’s more to show you still….”

* * *

It was with her first breath against his shoulder that Bond knew.

The first thing he became aware of was the smell of lemons and the feel of soft strands tickling his cheek.

“Mmmm… Good morning, James.” But those senses accompanied by the husky, inviting sound of Vesper Lynd was hardly the sound he had been expecting to hear.

“Vesper?” he reached out to push the locks of hair from her cheek, only to find his palm hovering in empty space.

“She may as well have ripped your still beating heart out of your chest and held it up in front of your face,” Q said, the first hint of bitterness in his voice. He usually refrained from emotional involvement but sometimes… He sighed, moving around the edge of the bed to lie down next to James who kept silent. 

“It wasn’t entirely her fault.”

“True. The men to whom humans seem inclined to give their power have a nasty habit of abusing it.”

A wing moved up and over Bond’s face, above him now the image of a drowning lover suspended in her watery grave. Bond reached up to close her eyes.

“She died for nothing.”

“She died for you, Commander. She may have lived, but it would have been a rather dull and uneventful life were it not for your presence in the world.”

The scene changed again. A middle-aged Vesper, glasses sliding down her nose, walked down the corridor towards them, her once beautiful features pulled tight around dull eyes, hardened through years of battling misogyny and male bureaucracy. Her fire all but extinguished.

“She would have lived, but it would have been a poor excuse for an existence indeed,” Q said, both turning to follow her retreating back, the stiff lines of her spine and shoulders a far cry from the pliant and beautiful form that he had enjoyed squirming in pleasure beneath him not so very long ago. “It may not have been her time but her death drives you towards your goal in ways that nothing else ever has.”

“Driven by anger? Regret? Vengeance?”

Q wrapped whispering wings gently around the man again. “Sometimes, fire must be fought with fire. Wars that employ guns were never won by bringing a sword.”

* * *

_“Hold your breath, Commander. Count to ten. Because this is far from the end.”_

Bond felt his lungs burn with the effort of coughing up the water he had consumed. The harsh, ragged, wrenching torn at his throat.

Bond spat the sand from his tongue and turned onto his back. He desperately tried to hold onto the images that had only moments ago devoured him in his unconsciousness.

“Q…” he murmured, before exhaustion in the face of his battle back to life overtook him.

* * *

The beach was fun, a nice, quiet retreat in which to recuperate and formulate his next move. But Bond was never one to stay still for long. He itched to see London again, and was contemplating his options when news of the attack on MI6 popped up on the TV screen.

Less of a nudge from the Universe, more of a get-your-sodding-arse-back-to-London-right-the-fuck-now.

* * *

Bond took a seat in front of Carravaggio’s The Martyrdom of St Matthew and waited for the new Quartermaster to appear. There was something familiar about the work, an echo… The shadows and the dark; something sacred reduced to the secular. The illusion of the ordinary defined by a far from ordinary hand. Bond cleared his mind and studied the image. Matthew wasn’t quailing in fear at the executioner's strike, instead reaching for the angel's gift. The executioner's grasp and the angel's reach two parallel paths. Bond imagined himself the prone man, at the mercy of his superiors, but waiting for… something… But Bond didn’t believe in guardian angels. Blind, dumb luck and a survival instinct to compete with the most deadly of apex predators were the order of his daily life.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Posh, silken tones penetrated the barrier of his thoughts. Bond shifted slightly on the bench but didn’t get any sense of danger so kept still. The man stepped to the side around the bench and took a seat close but not too close to Bond.

“Caravaggio speaks of light and dark in a way that allows us to understand completely that one cannot exist without the other. People are so determined to believe that good is the only way. What do you think?”

“I think I should find another seat…” Bond began, rising.

“007. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I would never have believed the tales of your legendary penchant for resurrection had I not seen it with my own eyes.”

Bond turned his head to the side to greet his slip of a Quartermaster. But when he met his steady gaze and allowed his eyes to glance fleetingly over his mop of hair, he got the faintest sense that something was missing. He was about to point out the need for some acne treatment and perhaps a comb when a commotion broke out near the entrance to the room. Instinctively, and though unarmed, Bond placed himself protectively between the Quartermaster and the shouting. Two uniformed gallery staff came running through the door, hot on the wings of the dove that had found its way into the building. They stood in the centre of the room as it flew in an ever-decreasing circle to come to rest on the seat next to Q.

Q raised his palm to the guards to fend off their approach. “Allow me,” he said calmly. Bond watched in fascination as Q placed the hand palm up. The bird studied it for a moment before hopping on and allow Q to gently grip his body. He stood. “Won’t be a moment, Bond,” he said, gesturing to the case on the seat. “Your kit’s in there. Be right back.” And he walked off.

Bond sat down again and picked up the case, flipping it open once the group of rubberneckers and the guards had disbanded.

A gun and a… transmitter of some sort?

“Coded specifically to your palm print, 007,” the warm voice had returned to its position.

“How did you—?” Bond incapable of tamping down his curiosity at Q being an ornithologist in a prior life. Q gave a small shrug. “I have no idea,” he said. “Birds have always liked me for some reason. Which in itself is odd. Given I’m much more a cat person.”

He took the radio from him, Bond feeling a familiarity at the light touch of his fingers across his palm as he did so (though he was at a loss as to why) and flipped out the tiny antennae by way of a demonstration.“For when you inevitably need us to come rescue you.”

“You know, I have an irresistible urge to put you across my knee, Q,” Bond quipped. But if Bond thought for one second he could intimidate the youngblood, he was wrong.

“Tut tut, 007. We wouldn’t want you to end up in Medical _before_ your mission now, would we?”

Q turned on his heel with a “good luck out there, Bond” and was gone, but not before Bond imagined a dove at his back, beating in time to the rhythm of his heart.

* * *

“Why on Earth are you calling me at such an ungodly hour, 007?” Alan stretched and yawned on his chest, evidently as disgruntled as Q at the disturbance to his sleep.

“My apologies, Q. I just…” Bond trailed off. He absolutely had no idea why he was calling his Quartermaster.

Of course Q _knew_. Bond hadn’t attended M’s funeral. 

He sighed inwardly. While the nature of his care of the Double Os didn’t - or shouldn’t - extend to their psychology, he did feel a certain responsibility, a connection with Bond borne out of their collusion with M to lure Silva to Scotland. He’d had a hand in circumstances too when all was said and done. There was no running from that fact.

“I can’t leave my cats. They see little enough of me as it is. If you want to talk, you know where I am.” Q hung up quickly. If the conversation was to be had, it needed to be face-to-face.

* * *

It was just after 2am when Bond knocked on Q’s door. He knotted his robe around his pajamaed body and took his alarm offline before opening the door.

“Nice slippers, Q,” said Bond, a weak attempt at lightening what was bound to be a dark and broody exchange. 

“Yes well. I’m not sure what you expect at two o’clock in the morning but REM is my usual forte.”

Bond said nothing, eyes taking in the sparse surroundings of Q’s front room. His eyes came to rest on the mantelpiece where what looked like a trophy - or award - sat.

“Is that a quadrant?” asked Bond through a small frown. Q looked confused for a moment before answering. “Yes. An award during my tenure year at MIT. What of it?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” replied Bond, staring into the middle distance, the absent look of a man trying to recall some memory just out of reach.

“Out with it, man,” said Q, flopping down on his sofa though rapidly adopting Quartermaster mode despite his snuggly attire.

“I need another mission.”

Q sighed. “Bond. You’ve been through this with Mallory. You’re grounded. A few weeks compassionate leave is good for the soul.”

“You’re assuming I have a soul, Q.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Bond.” Q gathered the unprotesting feline into his arms and walked over to the agent who had assumed a cross-armed staking out stance while staring out the window into the park opposite. “This march of the self-pitying is rather unbecoming.”

“I shouldn’t have come,” said Bond, suddenly aware of his own vulnerability though making no effort to leave.

“I’ve not known you long, 007, but you don’t strike me as someone who doesn’t do things without purpose.”

“Here. Hold Alan,” he said, thrusting the compliant cat into his chest.

Before he knew it, Bond had an armful of fur resting beneath his chin, blinking sleepily and purring loudly. He was about to protest until he realised he found the sensation strangely comforting. He buried his hand in the fur at the neck while Q retreated, returning moments later with two pillows and a blanket.

“Sleep. That’s an order, 007. Alan can keep you company. We’ll talk in the morning.” And, as was becoming a habit, he retreated without further preamble to his own bedroom, understanding that the need to be in companionable isolation sometimes far outweighed the desire to share the things troubling your mind.

* * *

Q awoke slowly, just before a breaking dawn. Lying on the pillow on his back, paws in the air with an odd curve to his spine, emitting a motorbike engine purr was Alan. Bloody cat could relax anywhere, thought Q sleepily.  And as consciousness made itself known, several other things also made themselves known to him. The next issue was several other points of contact against a warm body with which he had definitely not fallen asleep.

He felt Bond shift behind him, slowly rousing from his own slumber. He had not been so long ago that he had woken up in a similar situation, albeit on his sofa and the agent in question had been Moneypenny. Shortly after she had shot Bond off the bridge and in need of reassurance that M had left her with no option and he’d had no option to be there for her. This situation however, was a little more tricky, particularly given Q’s proclivities and the fact that Bond - let’s not be coy about it - was a gorgeous fucker. The head of Q Branch however, could never be accused of losing his cool under the pressure of any situation.

“Liberties, Commander Bond?”

Bond groaned and nuzzled into the nape of his neck. “Would you believe I sleepwalked?”

“Did you?”

“No. But Alan abandoned me so…”

“Ah. The cat led you astray.”

“Works for me.” 

Q felt the hesitation before Bond gently extracted himself. He didn’t look around when Bond said, “mind if I borrow a robe?”

“I think that would be most advisable,” he returned.

It was a few minutes later that Q heard his kettle boiling, and a minute after that when he sat up and retrieved his glasses to the sight of Bond walking towards him with a mug of tea.

“You know I tried training Alan to boil the kettle. You’re a much faster learner.”

“One in my vast repertoire of skills,” he said with a wry smile, sitting down on the edge of the bed and sipping his own drink.

Q’s phone pinged. “Work.” He climbed from beneath the covers. Bond snared his wrist before he could move away from the bed. Eyes met in a moment of silent acceptance. “Thank you,” Bond said with quiet sincerity. “Anytime, Commander Bond,” Q replied through a small smile.

Indeed. This was not the end after all.

* * *

Any form of downtime in Q Branch was rare. So when it presented itself, the minions did their best to make the most of it.

Moneypenny and Bond watched the activities from the safety of the platform above the bullpen.

It was a glorious sight.

Q was refereeing the proceedings. The minions had split into two teams and were currently engaged in a tug-o-war in the wide aisle between the desks. Q was cheering on and bossing both sides with a rousing and colourful stream of language that would have made a sailor blush. Well. Any sailor except Bond of course, who was smiling at the display of competitiveness encouraged and revelled in by the Quartermaster.

He gave as much attention to him as he did the game so when he saw him distract himself and stroll purposefully towards his station, he knew something was wrong.

“003. Report.” The rope was instantly dropped in favour of scuttling back to their own desks.

“Ambush…” came the laboured response across the comms. “I’m down. Gunshot wound to the thigh. Sniper I think.”

“Now listen carefully, Amber. I haven’t lost an agent yet and I don’t plan on starting now. Have you not noticed how 007’s rate of resurrection has skyrocketed since I came on board?”

She laughed breathily, followed by a low groan.

Q took a deep breath and centred himself. “We’ve been here before, 003.”

“But never together,” she replied.

“First time for everything.”

“Then let’s make our first time memorable, Quartermaster.”

“The first of many I assure you. Consider me your guardian angel.”

Those were the words that pulled the trigger in Bond’s mind and the final part of his quadrant came together and locked into place. 

Bond had never borne physical witness to the care and intensity of responsibility the man shouldered. Others would have surely buckled under the strain. By the time Bond and Moneypenny had joined him next to his workstation, Q had informed Tanner who mobilised Medivac, and Q had initiated a diversion that would cause enough distraction to allow Amber the time to get to the roof of the building and rendezvous with the helicopter.

Q unhooked himself and rubbed his eyes and the bridge of his nose. As if coming out of the zone, he reinserted himself into this reality, almost as though he had disembodied himself to stand by 003 and offer her the virtual shoulder she needed to pull herself out of danger.

“Ah,” he said, rolling back and loosening his shoulders, noticing the agents for the first time. “Lovely to see you two hanging out together,” he said with a cheeky smile. “R, if you wouldn’t mind keeping 003 company for a bit. She’ll probably pass out soon enough from the pain medication.”

R stepped up with a smile and took the headset. “Of course, Q. See you in the morning.”

Moneypenny immediately stepped up to his side and hooked her arm into his. “Wonderful. You can take me to dinner before you go home.”

Q sighed and dusted off his glasses before slipping them onto his face again. “I can’t say I’m much in the mood for London crowds and snippy waiters, Miss Moneypenny.”

“May I suggest a compromise?” Both of them turned simultaneously to survey Bond. “I’m assuming your cats will be in need of food,” he said. “So takeout. At yours, Quartermaster.”

Both Moneypenny and Q were too taken aback at Bond’s self-imposed invite to argue, following him out of the building and into the London night.

* * *

“What’s going on with you at the moment, James?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Moneypenny.”

“You’re.. Well.. Not the same as..”

“As when before you shot me off the train?”

Eve smirked. “Oh don’t be such a drama queen, Bond. It was only four ribs. Some of the less vital organs. Nothing major.”

Alan had inserted himself on Eve’s lap when food had been consumed and the three of them were currently lounging in Q’s living room.

“Maybe I’ve had one NDE more than any living being should,” he replied, eyes trained absently on the Quadrant Award. 

“Some of us were born to be field agents,” said Moneypenny standing and dislodging the cat who instantly made for his human’s lap, stretched out on the sofa dozing. “I’ll leave you to clean up, Bond. Make a change from Q and I always clearing up your mess,” she said, scooping up her jacket and handbag.

“Hilarious, Moneypenny,” groused Bond, watching her slip on her shoes and head for the front door. 

“See you boys tomorrow,” she whispered, slipping quietly out.

Bond cleared containers and left them by the sink in the kitchen. By the time he returned to the living room, Q was stretched out and had shifted from dozing to snoozing. Or so Bond thought. Making to beat a retreat himself, he heard Q mumble, “stay.” Q cracked an eye open and smiled. “James.”

“Mmm,” replied Bond, setting his jacket down again. “I was certain you’d want to be left in peace, Q.”

“Only human, 007. Can’t be right all the time.”

Again, that click of a lock about to reveal its secrets. Bond looked at the Quadrant on Q’s desk again, before looking back at Q. He moved towards him purposefully and to Q it appeared as though he was driven by some unseen force not under his control. “Hopefully, I’m about to get one thing right at least…” said Bond, leaning down and over his completely caught-off-guard superior.

* * *

It had been many, many years since Bond had made out on a sofa. He was, however, thoroughly enjoying the rediscovery of the fact that the simple things in life elicited a long forgotten sense of pleasure.

And coupled with the rather delightful additional discovery that his Quartermaster was an excellent kisser had defined a very fulfilling day indeed.

He drowned. He dreamed. Each moment lived had led to this. A first, a final embrace.

And when they parted to breathe into and draw life from each other -and because we all have a choice - Bond decided then, he never wanted to let go.


End file.
